Matching Items (6)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Pastoral systems, Prehistoric
- All Subjects: Plants, Fossil
- Creators: Fall, Patricia L.
- Creators: Ullah, Isaac I. T., 1979-
- Creators: Arrowsmith, J. Ramon
Description
This dissertation research investigates both spatial and temporal aspects of Bronze Age land use and land cover in the Eastern Mediterranean using botanical macrofossils of charcoal and charred seeds as sources of proxy data. Comparisons through time and over space using seed and charcoal densities, seed to charcoal ratios, and seed and charcoal identifications provide a comprehensive view of island vs. mainland vegetative trajectories through the critical 1000 year time period from 2500 BC to 1500 BC of both climatic fluctuation and significant anthropogenic forces. This research focuses particularly on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus during this crucial interface of climatic and human impacts on the landscape. Macrobotanical data often are interpreted locally in reference to a specific site, whereas this research draws spatial comparisons between contemporaneous archaeological sites as well as temporal comparisons between non-contemporaneous sites. This larger perspective is particularly crucial on Cyprus, where field scientists commonly assume that botanical macrofossils are poorly preserved, thus unnecessarily limiting their use as an interpretive proxy. These data reveal very minor anthropogenic landscape changes on the island of Cyprus compared to those associated with contemporaneous mainland sites. These data also reveal that climatic forces influenced land use decisions on the mainland sites, and provides crucial evidence pertaining to the rise of early anthropogenic landscapes and urbanized civilization.
ContributorsKlinge, JoAnna M (Author) / Fall, Patricia L. (Thesis advisor) / Falconer, Steven E. (Committee member) / Brazel, Anthony J. (Committee member) / Pigg, Kathleen B (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The Zingiberales, including the gingers (Zingiber), bananas (Musa) and ornamental flowers (Strelitzia, Canna, and Heliconia) are a diverse group of monocots that occupy the tropics and subtropics worldwide. The monophyly of the order is well supported, although relationships between families are not well resolved. A rapid divergence of the Zingiberales has been proposed to explain the poor resolution of paraphyletic families in the order, and direct fossil evidence shows members of both of these lineages of Zingiberaceae and Musaceae were present by the Late Cretaceous. Comparisons of the fossils with extant relatives and their systematic placement have been limited because variation within modern taxa is not completely known. The current study focuses on describing zingiberalean fossil material from North Dakota that includes seeds, leaves, buds, adventitious roots and rhizomes. A survey of extant zingiberalean seeds was conducted, including descriptions of those for which data were previously unknown, in order to resolve the taxonomic placement of the fossil material. Upon careful examination, anatomical characters of the seed coat in fossil and extant seeds provide the basis for a more accurate taxonomic placement of the fossils and a better understanding of character evolution within the order.
ContributorsBenedict, John C (Author) / Pigg, Kathleen B. (Thesis advisor) / Wojciechowski, Martin F. (Committee member) / Devore, Melanie L. (Committee member) / Fall, Patricia L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
ContributorsAllen, Eowyn K. (Author) / Falconer, Steven E. (Author) / Sarjoughian, Hessam S. (Author) / Barton, C. Michael (Author) / Fall, Patricia L. (Author)
Created2006
Description
Poster presented at the American Geophysical Union, 2006, San Francisco.
ContributorsDiMaggio, E. N. (Author) / Arrowsmith, J. Ramon (Author) / Barton, C. Michael (Author) / Sarjoughian, Hessam S. (Author) / Fall, Patricia L. (Author) / Ullah, Isaac I. T., 1979- (Author)
ContributorsBergin, Sean M. (Author) / Ullah, Isaac I. T., 1979- (Author) / Barton, C. Michael (Author) / Gravel-Miguel, Claudine (Author)
Created2012
ContributorsBergin, Sean M. (Author) / Ullah, Isaac I. T., 1979- (Author) / Barton, C. Michael (Author) / Mayer, Gary R. (Author) / Sarjoughian, Hessam S. (Author)
Created2010